"What?!" Fort looked like a blood vessel might burst in his head.
Unsurprised by the man's outburst, Gui cleared space on his desk. "Your wife was already digging into this. You mean to tell me she knows absolutely nothing about what is going on?"
"Only her own theories," the Deputy Director did not like the implication. "I have told her nothing!"
"You mean to tell me the emotional lie detector next to you got nothing out of you regarding the situation we are in?" Gui shook his head incredulously.
"That isn't his fault!" Noble quickly came to the defense of her husband.
"I didn't say it was." The Chancellor agreed. He pivoted on his question. "So, what exactly do you know?"
Noble thought for a moment. If she wanted honesty from the Chancellor, she should probably show good faith first.
"I know that the gate by my children's school opened with virtually no warning. I know that there was another gate yesterday with the same lack of notice. There are many others I did not discover, but I think that is due to the government holding onto information more than my lack of diligence. The Obel scale is failing. It's North America all over again."
"Yes to all but that last statement. I very much hope to avoid that last bit." Gui rubbed his forehead. While his calm exterior was still in place, Noble could feel the concern coming off of the Chancellor.
With a tap of his finger on the data pad, the serene scene on the wall was replaced by a map of the world. Dots with timestamps dating years back began to pop up on the map.
The date they occurred and the amount of warning varied, but as time moved closer and closer to the present, the lead time was becoming increasingly erratic.
The three watched the progression with grim expressions. By the time they reached the gate from the day before, there was a clearly emerging pattern.
The Obel scale was on the verge of another total collapse.
"It is worse than I thought. Much worse." Noble covered her mouth with her hand. "You knew, didn't you?" She looked at Fort. His forlorn expression told her even more than his emotions. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I couldn't." Not only had Fort been sworn to utter secrecy, but he also worried deeply about how such news would affect his wife.
"I see." Noble would process her emotions on that later. There was a much bigger issue at hand. "The tragedy of North America cannot happen again. Or at least we need to do everything we can to stop it. I am assuming Professor Obel himself is working on this problem."
The Chancellor stayed silent for a long time. "Professor Obel…is deeply invested in another project. He will not be persuaded to divert from that goal."
There was certainly more to the situation, but Noble knew better than to press that particular point. An unwilling participant could often do more harm than good. Nothing Noble could say to Gui would magically change the absent scientist's mind, so it was better to move on.
"Forgive me, Sir, for pointing out the obvious here, but even if it is North America again, how could Noble be of assistance? We were children when that happened! I know for a fact that the Government has its best analysts working on the problem. Surely you can let Noble go home and rest at ease knowing that we have the problem in hand. She won't tell anyone, I can assure you. I do not think you should drag her into this." Fort rose slightly from his seat in preparation to leave.
It was only when his superior motioned for him to remain that Fort reluctantly sank back into his chair.
"Deputy Director, while we do have our best people on this problem, I am hoping that Awakened Noble has a skill that none of them possess." Gui stood from his desk, holding his datapad in his hand.
"What is that, Sir?" Fort asked, trying to hide the incredulity in his voice. Noble would have been upset at his lack of belief if she were not having the same doubts.
Making an intricate pattern of keystrokes on his device, Gui released a drawer to an unassuming filing cabinet. He pulled out a page of familiar, yellowed, synthetic paper.
"Did either of you look at Director Lance's notes?"
"Only enough to make sure they were what you were requesting," Fort answered honestly.
"Only what Mother showed me when we were cleaning." Noble had known deep down that she needed to preserve the notes, but she hadn't looked at what the boxes contained. It wasn't until she had finally gotten a second data point with the new gate that it had even occurred to her to compare them to the notes.
Gui looked at his hands. "This is a sample. While some of the words are plain and easy to read, the bulk of it is, for lack of a better word, gibberish."
'Sounds just like father.' The professor bit her lip to suppress a grin. "Hm, is there not a cipher?"
"If there is, it was not among what I received." Gui had looked personally, hoping it was just an oversight.
"Surely the government has its own version of most of this information as well as a copy of the cipher on one of their many servers." Noble could not believe with how much data was kept that the governing authority had simply misplaced such a wealth of knowledge.
"You'd think so," Gui answered with a heavy sigh, "but shortly after Deputy Lance died, the person who replaced him found that most of the data collected by your father had been wiped. That was before I was Chancellor, of course. I only recently became aware of the incident."
"Such a loss of information! Was it caused by a breach?" Fort furrowed his brow. He had heard nothing about this before.
"Either that or a fail-safe that somehow cleared the files. The end result is that these papers are the only real records of Lance's that I trust." The Chancellor indicated the page. "And the people I have trusted to decode them have come up empty. So, Awakened Noble, can you read it?"
Leaning forward, Gui passed over the paper and sat back down.
Noble looked over the paper carefully. A small smile formed on her lips. "I can tell you why your analysts have had trouble finding a pattern here. There isn't one."
"You cannot read it?" Gui hid his disappointment from his question.
"I didn't say that. I am just a bit rusty." Noble forced her eyes shut and then blinked a few times. "It will come back to me soon enough. Faster if I ask Mother."
Fort peeked into her lap. "What even is it?"
"Exactly what the Chancellor said–Gibberish. Father liked to learn languages from the Dark Ages. Growing up, he and his brothers made up a compilation of them with their own grammar rules and additional silly phrases. By the time my parents married, the three brothers had it down to a fine art. I remember speaking it with my cousins. It was a fun game. Once the gate opened and they all died, only mother, father, and I had any knowledge of its existence."
Noble was suddenly sad. She had lost so much that day, including her laughing language buddies. If another event like that could be prevented…
"You have my full support. I will do what I can." Noble nodded and handed back the paper.
"Excellent." Gui's dark eyes softened. Clearly, a part of him had expected her to refuse. "I will request a workspace for you in the building and get you all the permissions you need to get to work as soon as possible."
"If it is all the same to you, Sir, I have a condition to this arrangement…" Fort swallowed. Since there was no way around what was happening, he at least wanted to help set parameters.
"Of course, we will pay your wife for her time if that is your concern," Gui began entering the information on his datapad for what to tell his Chief of Staff.
Fort felt a small sense of relief that Gui had thought about that aspect at all. "That's good, but not what I was going to say. As urgent as this project is, what Noble does at the Academy is also very important to the Sleepers she serves. This cannot be her full-time job."
Noble opened her mouth to argue, but she realized her husband was right. The professor would not abandon her students before the solstice.
"The government will work around Noble's schedule. She is doing us a favor after all." Gui felt the request was completely reasonable. "Anything else?"
"I think that about covers it," Noble said before the Deputy Director could make any more stipulations. "Where should I send my schedule of availability?"
"Don't worry. We will be in touch. Thank you, professor." The Chancellor rose and the other two followed. "One more thing. I wanted to tell you I was rooting for you. You gave Mongrel a run for his money. Part of me wishes you had used your aspect to put him in his place."
Noble opened and shut her mouth. She wanted to deny being Queen Bee, but Gui was far too certain. Defeated, she shook her head slowly.
"Very clever, Chancellor." Noble's eyes opened wider. "But if you know who I am, does that mean you know who Mongrel is as well?"
Stroking his chin, Gui cocked his head to one side and answered with a mysterious grin. "Who knows?"